Thursday, May 30, 2013

I've made my foray into the writing of Alice Munro, who is a famous Canadian writer known for her short stories. I've always had it in my mind to pick something up of hers, so when my mother-in-law gave me her most recent book, Dear Life, for Christmas, it went to the (relative) top of the pile.

To be perfectly honest, I wasn't a huge fan. There were a handful of stories in the book that I found interesting but, for the most part, the writing style just did not grab my attention. I felt like I was just dropped in to the middle of stories, and taken out before they finished.

This books was supposedly special because the last four stories were somewhat autobiographical. They were some of the more interesting stories in the book, but I found some of the narrative was really repetitive between the four stories.

Overall, though a few of the stories were really intriguing, I'm not convinced that I'll be reading another one of her books in the near future. I give this book a 2.5/5.

I'm starting to realize that maybe I'm just more of a popular fiction type reader. And, since reading is supposed to be a hobby and not a job or chore, I might just have to embrace that fact and read more of the type of books I know I'll enjoy.

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Not sure what it is about the summer - I guess from being cooped up inside for months on end in the winter, and dreaming of having warm enough weather to do stuff - but there are always tons of things I want to make sure we do. Inspired by MJ's post at her blog, Living the Dream, here is our family bucket list for this summer (we did one a couple years ago too):

Monday, May 20, 2013

Man, oh man, have we felt like failures lately in the parenting department. I get that 2.5 is a rough age, but it's like we have absolutely no control over our child these days.

He rarely listens to us anymore, especially in public. Getting him to do anything that isn't his idea is like torture (for him and us). Things that used to be relatively simple - like dinner time - are now a battle of wills. He'll ask for one thing to eat, we'll make it for him, and then he doesn't want it and wants something else instead.

He has absolutely no interest in potty training, which is starting to get frustrating. He will sit on the potty, but only for a few seconds before bolting saying "you can't catch me! you can't catch me!". Cute the first 30 times, but not so much anymore. We're not pushing it on him. We just offer the potty to him a few times a day, but we're not making any progress.We might have to use the cold turkey method later this summer if it continues like this.

I know all of this is probably normal, but man, this age is definitely the hardest so far. I mean, we actually have to parent...can you imagine? We know the key is consistency, but sometimes it's tough to decide which battles are worth fighting and which are just better to let go.

Thankfully, there are a lot of fun moments in between all the chaos and destruction. He makes us laugh every day, and we love how energetic, curious, and loving he is.

Saturday, May 11, 2013

We're planning on having our first ever yard sale sometime this summer. We do sometimes sell things on Kijiji here and there, but we've amassed a pretty big pile of stuff we want to get rid of, so I thought trying to do it all at once might be a good idea.

The last time I was involved in a garage/yard sale was at my parents house years ago, so I'm sure things have changed since then. So, I need some tips from people who have done this recently!

1. Where is the best place to advertise? Do newspapers still have yard sale sections, or is online the way to go (or both)?

2. Is one weekend day good (if so, which is better?), or should we do both days?

3. I've heard "opening" earlier is better - what's a good time to open and close the sale?

4. Prices - always the fun part, I imagine. Do you price to sell (I'm leaning this way) or price to make money?

5. Do you sell everything individually (and then maybe give deals if they're buying more than one), or put packages together (this would be for things like VHS/DVDs, clothes, photo frames, etc.)?

6. Any other great tips?

I'm kind of excited about this - I feel like it's a rite of passage or something.

- Various "impactors" (balls of various sizes, clay if you want to change shapes)

- Plastic sheets, garbage bags, or similar

- Paper towels

- Ruler and meter/yard stick if you want to be more scientific

Set-up

- Put down a large plastic sheet or a view garbage bags/newspapers/whatever (or do it outside!)

- Fill the bin about 1/3-1/2 full of flour

- Using the sifter, put a thin layer of hot chocolate on top

- Choose an impactor

Experiment

- What happens when the impactor hits? (A hole is made, obviously, but you should also see flour get ejected out of the crater - these are called ejecta rays)

- What happens to the crater if you change things in experiment? You can change things about the impactor (size, shape, mass), how you drop it (height, angle, speed), the material you drop it into (gravel, sand, jell-o, water, ice, etc.) - you can get very creative! Just see where it goes :)

Extension

If you want to be more scientific, you can go over dependent variables
(things you measure as a result of the experiment: depth and width of
the crater, length of the ejecta rays) and independent variables (things
you change in the experiment: size/shape/mass of impactor, height of
drop, type of material, etc.). You can then go over how to set up an experiment: chose ONE dependent variable to measure and ONE independent variable to change - all other independent variables need to stay constant (that way, you know what is causing the change). They can even come up with a hypothesis statement and take measurements.

If you want more information, just email me and I have additional resources that I can send!

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Being the parent of one child with another on the way, I'm having the assumingly normal worries about what life is going to be like after Jelly Bean gets here. Everything seems so well balanced with the three of us right now, and I feel like it's all going to get flipped upside down. I know it will "just work out" and we'll get back into some sort of routine eventually, but it's hard to imagine.

So, if you're a parent of more than one child, how did the transition from 1 to more go? Any tips to make it go a bit more smoothly?

If you're an older sibling and remember your younger sibling(s) coming in to your life, what do you remember about the transition? Being a younger sister, I'm blissfully unaware of this situation.